Contest in New Zealand to win a Ukrainian bride

[ML]

The contest, run by MediaWorks' The Rock radio station, will see the winner flown to Ukraine for 12 nights, given $2000 spending money, and offered their choice of a bride from an agency.

''If you're interested in holy matrimony with a potentially hot foreign chick, fill it out to the best of your abilities,'' the competition application form says on the station's website.

The promotion began on Monday and ends on February 28.

The Rock programme director, Brad King, yesterday said the station had received a ''massive reaction'' from all over the country.

''Some people think it's a little stupid, others see it as what it is, a tongue in cheek idea that gives someone the opportunity of a lifetime to travel on an all expenses paid trip to  Ukraine,'' he said.

He would not say whether the station had received any complaints.

''We like to have a bit of a laugh and not take things too seriously, so rather than playing 'cupid' we decided we would play 'stupid' on this, and send a listener over to Ukraine with the chance of finding a connection.''

[tfcrew]

Labour's Women's Affairs spokeswoman Carol Beaumont this morning said she was ''appalled'' by the contest....

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4639836/MP-adds-criticism-to-win-a-bride-contest

[JR]

Sign me up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL

[GQBlues]

Pretty funny stuff.

Makes one wonder why AFA, or the likes, didn't come to the idea of 'raffling' an all-expense paid trip to one of their socials from their wife-seeking client database. 

A dollar/ticket with a minimum of 200 tix/purchase. That ought to ease the concern of many who equate looking for a lifelong partner with how much these trips cost.

[I/O]

In a blog on Labour's Red Alert site, Beaumont added her criticism to that of the former Green Party MP Sue Bradford for the promotion.

The loony left dogooders are up in arms whilst anyone with any sense sees it for what it is. Why does that not surprise me. 

[Anotherkiwi]

Sign me up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL

Sorry, married men are automatically disqualified!  After reading all the blurb and the entry conditions, it's actually not such a piss-take as it might seem.  It's being done in conjunction with Endless Love, an agency set up by a New Zealander who eventually married a Ukrainian woman.  Will be very interesting to see how it turns out!  However, I don't think I'll enter - apart from The Rock not being my kind of radio station (no offence, guys!) it's just not my scene.

[Aloe]

Hey, at least the applicants are honest, in the few applications i've read. There is a question "Top 3 benefits of having a wife". Replies are something like this: cooking, washing, sex, *snip*ing, etc   lol

[JR]

Sorry, married men are automatically disqualified! 

I'm not married....yet)

So where do I get in line?!?!?!?!?!

RWD should start a reality cable show....

[Rubicon]

The loony left dogooders are up in arms whilst anyone with any sense sees it for what it is. Why does that not surprise me. 

the looney feminazi's do not like competition from real women!!

[ML]

Ukraine group protests with topless rally
Today at 15:00 | Associated Press
A group of topless women's rights activists, partially clad in wedding gowns and veils, are protesting sex and marriage tourism by foreigners in Ukraine.

Nine scantily clad women bared their breasts in the freezing cold outside Kiev's central marriage registration facility on Tuesday. They condemned a New Zealand radio station that sponsored a trip to Ukraine for a listener to find a mail-order bride.

The women held posters reading "Ukraine is not a brothel."

The group, Femen, says local women should not be auctioned off like animals. Femen's leader Anna Hutsol says "Ukrainian women are not a commodity."

The radio station, The Rock FM, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/98618/#ixzz1FMHQ4lCe

[Aloe]

Ukraine group protests with topless rally
Today at 15:00 | Associated Press
A group of topless women's rights activists, partially clad in wedding gowns and veils, are protesting sex and marriage tourism by foreigners in Ukraine.

Nine scantily clad women bared their breasts in the freezing cold outside Kiev's central marriage registration facility on Tuesday. They condemned a New Zealand radio station that sponsored a trip to Ukraine for a listener to find a mail-order bride.

The women held posters reading "Ukraine is not a brothel."

The group, Femen, says local women should not be auctioned off like animals. Femen's leader Anna Hutsol says "Ukrainian women are not a commodity."

The radio station, The Rock FM, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/98618/#ixzz1FMHQ4lCe

AGAIN?? This is getting old.. I think they are just exhibitionists...

[Aloe]

Even more so, considering how new zealand is in mourning over hundreds of dead people last week and those peaches are out there protesting against a joke on their radio?

[Chicagoguy]

ManLooking  -  I'm sorry to say that I can't enlarge your picture enough to make a
choice   

[I/O]

Anna Hutsol says "Ukrainian women are not a commodity."

Hmmmm, think she shot her bullsch!t argument in the foot right there. Last time I was in Ukraine (not suggesting it's unique), my observations suggested quite the opposite, walking down the street of any major, one encounters any amount of "buyable" women (either professional or amateur).

[Rubicon]

Hmmmm, think she shot her bullsch!t argument in the foot right there. Last time I was in Ukraine (not suggesting it's unique), my observations suggested quite the opposite, walking down the street of any major, one encounters any amount of "buyable" women (either professional or amateur).

sad but true.  or they are waiting outside your hotel door.

[GQBlues]

Somehow holding placards saying "Ukraine is not a brothel" by bare-breasted women seem rather an oxymoron to me...

Beyond the hardened nipples, is there any other point(s) to this all?

[I/O]

Somehow holding placards saying "Ukraine is not a brothel" by bare-breasted women seem rather an oxymoron to me...

I'd just stick with the "moron" bit.....................

[ML]

New Zealand’s The Rock FM radio station ran a competition called “Win a Wife,” offering a 12-night trip to Ukraine organised by a bride agency.

The station announced the winner as a winemaker named Greg, who is due to fly into Ukraine’s gritty coal mining town of Donetsk on March 23, before travelling to the industrial town of Zaporizhia.

“Femen warns the ‘lucky’ winner of the New Zealand competition that he can expect an unhappy ending in Ukraine,” activist Olexandra Shevchenko said in a statement on the movement’s blog.

- - - - -

Maybe this chap could stay with our David while in Donetsk!

[ML]

nzherald.co.nz
Monday March 7, 2011 6:21AM NZT

Greg Morgan won a radio competition called 'Win a Wife' on the radio.

Roksolana is 27. Glossy haired with milky shoulders accentuated by a tight strapless black dress, she gazes straight down the lens.

Greg Morgan is hoping she could be The One. But if not, maybe his future will be Okslana, 29. Or one of the other Ukrainian beauties with photos on the Endless Love agency website.

On March 23, Morgan is setting out on what he hopes will be the trip of a lifetime. The 37-year-old winemaker from West Auckland won The Rock FM's controversial "Win a Wife" competition. Morgan's prize is a fortnight in the Ukraine meeting eligible ladies introduced by the New Zealand-based matchmaking agency, Endless Love.

Roksolana and Okslana both caught Morgan's eye while he was flipping through the agency's books, and he is optimistic that by the time he touches down in the Ukraine he will have exchanged emails and video messages with the young women and they will be willing to meet him.

"I guess it will be a two-week blind date," says Morgan, "with all the hopes of meeting that special person in my life."

A group of local lasses didn't have such a romantic view of the radio competition.

This week, Ukrainian feminists staged a topless protest in wintry Kiev holding placards that read: "Ukraine is not a brothel."

The story was picked up around the world and featured on BBC and National Public Radio in the United States.

Morgan is unfazed by the backlash. He says if the protesters turn up to the airport he will happily get a photo with them and listen to their point of view.

He says he is just a guy who is "unlucky in love", and is seizing one of life's opportunities.

Morgan is not the only Kiwi bloke to have sought companionship offshore.

The internet has opened up the marriage market from a domestic to an international hunting ground, and men are looking abroad when they do not find what they want at home, according to a new study by Paul Callister and Zoe Lawton of Victoria University's Institute of Policy Studies.

There is a lack of research on mail-order brides in New Zealand, so Callister and Lawton investigated population statistics and related this to international studies.

The study suggests long-distance marriages tend to owe more to economic, social and demographic factors rather than the power of love.

Mail-order brides in New Zealand are nothing new. During the late 1700s and 1800s, European male settlers would post advertisements in newspapers seeking brides back home in Britain. Women would reply and correspond by mail, often agreeing to marry without meeting in person.

In the 1980s, social changes had an effect on some men and women's decisions relating to relationships - and the impact has had long-term effects on the marriage market.

In the past three decades, women have increasingly moved into tertiary education and paid employment. As New Zealand women have a tendency to "marry up", this has led to a growing number of unskilled men who struggled to find partners locally.

Worse still for those men, well-educated women may choose to live alone, even raise children on their own, while working to support themselves.

Some men have continued to look for women who will fulfil a more traditional role in marriage - homemakers who stay at home to raise children.

This leaves a mismatch, says Callister, and so some Kiwi blokes have turned to mail-order brides from countries such as Thailand, the Philippines and Russia.

"If those guys can turn elsewhere to find that and it suits those particular women from those countries, you could argue everybody wins," he says. "Except the well-educated women don't have a partner."

Historically, says Callister, relationships were about practical matters such as family ties, land transfers and dowries - so why should we be shocked that factors such as prosperity and citizenship should again be factors?

"It's only been recently that we've been into the idea that partnerships are designed by love."

Asia NZ Foundation researcher Andrew Butcher says statistics support the theory that New Zealand men are looking to other countries, particularly Asian nations, for partners.

This is reflected in the fact that there are 26 per cent more Asian women than Asian men, aged 25 to 49, living in New Zealand.

And nearly a quarter of the Southeast Asian immigrants stated that their primary reason for moving to New Zealand was marriage.

Morgan shrugs off suggestions that there is stigma attached to seeking a bride from the Ukraine.

He has been married before, to a New Zealander. He got hitched in 2006 and things turned sour shortly after.

"I'm a firm believer if you love something, set it free and if it comes back it loves you. It didn't come back," he says. "We were talking to the lawyers in 2007."

But that has not put him off the hope of one day settling down. He has tried agencies, online dating and Table for Six, a dining event for singles. "I guess you could say I'm an old Kiwi battler."

It is Morgan's second visit to the Ukraine. He went on a three-week trip in July last year and had arranged to meet up with a young woman he connected with online, but she pulled out at the last minute.

He said he went there for work - the Ukraine has a long history of winemaking - but while preparing for his trip could not avoid the marketing of dating agencies over there.

"Every time you look online about the Ukraine or Russia you get all these pop-ups on the internet. Curiosity kills the cat."

Morgan describes Ukrainian women as "amazingly attractive, friendly, bubbly" and "they don't eat rubbish food".

In his opinion, the men do not put up much competition: "Drunks and alcoholics."

Morgan is looking for someone who is "open-minded, passionate, similar to myself but not too similar".

And, he says, he is not in the camp of Kiwi men who want a traditional wife and homemaker.

He likes cooking.

Kiwi men a good catch

Kiwi men are sought after by Thai women because they treat their wives with respect.

That's according to Hamish Linklater, a Mt Roskill accountant who has been in a relationship with Payao Chomkhunthod for 12 years. What started as a business partnership blossomed into a love story - a happy ending for Chomkhunthod after two broken marriages.

Chomkhunthod, the owner of Zap Thai restaurants, is from Nakhon Phanom in northern Thailand. At 18 she married a Thai man and quickly had two children, daughter Eid and son Addie.

Fed up with her husband's womanising ways, she left him after nine years and worked in Bangkok as a nanny.

She got her ticket to New Zealand when her employer moved here and organised for her to marry a Kiwi for residency.

Chomkhunthod and her New Zealand husband, Ray, tried to make a go of their marriage and with his help she was able to bring her children out from Thailand.

But the marriage dissolved when Chomkhunthod wanted to start her own business.

Chomkhunthod met Linklater at a party and with his financial help was able to set up a string of Thai restaurants in Auckland.

Now key figures in the Auckland Thai community, the couple have facilitated many happy matches between Thai women and New Zealand men - most through friends but some online.

Linklater says Thai men tend to be "very chauvinistic, drink too much and chase other ladies".

A Kiwi guy, particularly an older one who wants a life partner, is an attractive option for a Thai woman.

Linklater has rented the two houses next door to their Mt Roskill home for Chomkhunthod's relatives - and they also provide a workforce for the restaurants.

By Frances Morton

[Handycam72]

Seems being in the UK, Kyiv Post is blocked.

Just comes up with this:

"The Kyiv Post, effective Dec. 14, 2010, is blocking access to all web traffic originating from the United Kingdom in protest of the draconian libel laws there that hinder legitimate free speech and threaten the work of independent journalists, authors, scientists and others worldwide. In a phenomenon known as “libel tourism,” rich and powerful plaintiffs file lawsuits in London – “the libel capital of the world” – to exploit laws stacked in their favor, stifling journalism and threatening news organizations and others with costly lawsuits.
If you have comments about the Kyiv Post ban, please address them to letters@kyivpost.com and include your name, city of residence and contact telephone number for verification."

As for Femen, if they used their heads instead of their bodies, people might actually take them half serious. But they are good entertainment.

[ML]

 Has New Zealand contest winner found a Ukrainian girlfriend?    “Win a Wife,” a controversial radio contest held in New Zealand in February, made winner Greg Morgan a happy man and once again nourished a stereotype of Ukraine as the world’s bride basket.         

 Winemaker Morgan won round-trip tickets to Ukraine and 12 nights in Zaporizhzhya to meet a woman of his dreams, but after bad publicity surrounding the sexist competition, he reportedly refused to make the trip.
 
 The New Zealand Labour Party was outraged: “It is a reminder that there is still an attitude towards women in New Zealand that is deeply troubling – that they are commodities to buy and to own,” Carol Beaumont wrote in her blog in February.
 
 But just when Ukrainian feminists and New Zealand politicians sighed with relief, photos of Morgan with a playful blonde posing in front of yellow curtains in a radio station’s t-shirt popped up online.
 
 “Greg has met Irina and she plans on coming down to New Zealand when she finishes university, haha, go Greg,” reads the message on the Rock FM’s Facebook page.
 
 
 Is Greg Morgan seeing a college student named Irina? (www.therock.net.nz)
 
 It looks like Morgan rescheduled the trip to get his prize and tricked Femen, a popular women’s movement who protested topless against Morgan’s visit on March 1.
 
 Young women promised to disrupt the kiwi’s visit to Ukraine by appearing in Donetsk airport on the day of his scheduled arrival.
 
 “We will do everything possible to make sure he takes his suitcase and flies back,” said Anna Hutsol, Femen’s leader.
 
 But Morgan apparently sneaked past the naked customs patrol and met with a student called Irina.
 
 Bypassing vigilant Femen, Morgan proved a persistent fellow.
 
 This wasn’t his first attempt to find a Ukrainian bride. In his radio profile online, he mentioned that he had already tried to meet a woman from Ukraine but two days before his departure she allegedly ditched him.
 

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/guide/general/detail/105396/#ixzz1NVOW9xjY

[Anotherkiwi]

... Is Greg Morgan seeing a college student named Irina? (www.therock.net.nz)...

Remember the threads about communication (or lack of?).  Even in English it can be tricky - in New Zealand "college" means high school, not university  !  For example, I went to XYZ High School - our nearest neighbours (and biggest rivals) were ABC College.

[Muzh]

The latest news on Greg Morgan.
 
 

[2tallbill]

Has New Zealand contest winner found a Ukrainian girlfriend?    “Win a Wife,” a controversial radio contest held in New Zealand in February, made winner Greg Morgan a happy man and once again nourished a stereotype of Ukraine as the world’s bride basket.         

 Winemaker Morgan won round-trip tickets to Ukraine and 12 nights in Zaporizhzhya to meet a woman of his dreams, but after bad publicity surrounding the sexist competition, he reportedly refused to make the trip.
 

What a bunch of wet blankets!